The Lebanese militant organization Hezbollah conducted its first rocket and drone assault against Israeli territory in a year and a half on Monday, according to Israeli military sources, triggering Israeli counterstrikes on Lebanese positions and representing a major intensification following the group’s entry into hostilities that erupted after joint U.S.-Israeli operations targeting Iran.
Israeli military officials reported Monday that defense systems successfully intercepted a rocket aimed at a missile defense installation in Haifa, while other projectiles fell in unpopulated regions. No casualties were immediately reported from the incoming fire on Israeli soil.
Israel responded with aerial bombardments against Lebanese locations, including a strike in Beirut where Israeli forces said they targeted a high-ranking Hezbollah operative.
During remarks at a General Staff meeting, Israeli military commander Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir announced that forces had “launched an offensive campaign against Hezbollah” following the organization’s decision to join combat operations against Israel. His comments came as Israeli leadership indicated readiness for expanded military actions along the northern frontier.
The Iranian-supported militant organization previously declared it would “confront the aggression” by the United States and Israel after their attacks on Iranian targets. In a Sunday statement mourning Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem pledged the group would fulfill its obligations and would not retreat from what he called the “field of honor and resistance.”
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced Israel’s intention to eliminate Hezbollah’s command structure, specifically naming Qassem as a target. “The Hezbollah terror organization will pay a heavy price for the firing toward Israel, and Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s secretary general, who decided on the firing under pressure from Iran, from now on, he is a marked target for elimination,” Katz posted on X.
He further stated that anyone who “follows the path” of Iran’s former supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who Israeli forces killed on Saturday, “will soon find himself together with him in the depths of hell with all those eliminated from the axis of evil.”
The Lebanese organization had stayed out of the 12-day direct confrontation between Israel and Iran that occurred last June. Israeli authorities characterized Monday’s attacks as a shift from that previous position and cautioned that additional Hezbollah aggression would prompt escalated military responses.
